


Origins Of The Sides

by The_King_Of_Ravens



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:53:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27392257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_King_Of_Ravens/pseuds/The_King_Of_Ravens
Summary: The Sides have always been in Thomas life, regardless of his awareness of them.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Origins Of The Sides

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I hope you enjoy this story.

Thomas was helping his parents by cleaning up their attic which was filled with dusty boxes. While cleaning, he fell upon some old family albums. Smiling, he looked at the covers and saw that one of them was marked “Thomas Sanders”. Naturally, this got him curious. Forgetting about his task, he opened the small book to the first page.

He chuckled slightly at the sight of himself; he was so small back then! He slowly flipped through the pages, which were mostly filled with images showing birthday parties, play dates and other random pictures of him during holidays. Underneath the pictures were scrawled short explanations and dates, like “first sleepover!” and “Halloween 2000”.

But something caught his eye in one of the pictures.

It seemed rather normal at first.: It showed him blowing candles off a cake, which probably meant it was his birthday. Behind him was his dad, his hands resting on the boy’s shoulder, and surrounding the table were his brothers. He guessed his mom was holding the camera. It all seemed normal but... a little further away, standing in the living room, he could see five other kids standing there. They looked strangely familiar, and not because they were his friends.

He squinted, trying to get a better look at the small image, and frowned.

_Were those... the sides?_

Questions ran through his mind. _How? What? Why? When?_

He flipped through a few other pages, because maybe it was just a trick of the light, but to his astonishment, they were in every single picture. Even when he flipped back, they were present in pictures he hadn’t noticed.

Sometimes it was all of them, the six sides, but that was mostly when they were younger. When they were really young though Roman and Remus weren’t there; a rather extravagant figure was in their place.

_Who in the world could that guy be?_

Sometimes it was just one or two of them, like when he’d gone to a school spelling bee and Logan was smiling proudly in the background. As he grew older in the pictures, he noticed Deceit stopped coming. On his first day of middle school, Thomas saw Virgil frowning worriedly in the background, his eyeshadow very dark and he knew he was very nervous that day because the side was sitting on the counter instead of a chair.

He looked through the rest of the album and closed the book. Looking around, he realised he still had to finish putting boxes away. Sighing, he did that as fast as he could, so many questions running through his mind.

“Okay I’m done!” He called his Mom, who came out of the kitchen and thanked him. He hugged her and smiled sweetly. “Of course! I’ll be going home now but I love helping you out.”

Once he got home, he immediately summoned his sides.

Patton appeared first. “What’s up Kiddo?” He asked with a grin on his face.

Before Thomas could answer, he shouted the answer for him. “The sky!”

Thomas chuckled slightly at the old joke.

Next came Logan, who was in the middle of reading a book.

“What are you reading there?” Asked Thomas curiously, peering at the novel.

This caused Logan to look up, seemingly surprised to find himself in the real world rather than the mind scape. He closed the book carefully, marking the page with a dark blue bookmark.

“Ah, well you see it’s a fascinating study about animals, more specifically, the polar bear, by the famous auth-“

He was interrupted by Roman, the prince rising up dramatically as he always did.

“Did someone say ‘Prince’?” He asked, flashing them a grin.

Logan, annoyed, glared at him. “No one said ‘Prince’.”

Roman winked at him. “Well you did say ‘fascinating’, and who else could that be?”

Before Logan could reply, Virgil appeared on the stairs and asked Thomas what he wanted.

“Ah!” Said the Host, smiling. “Well, I was cleaning up my mom’s attic when I found an old picture album.”

The rest of them nodded to show they were following. Thomas bit his lip, hesitatingly. “And... you’re all in it. I thought I only met you this year? But I guess I never asked... Have you always been around?”

“Well yes, we are parts of your personality after all,” explained Logan in a matter of fact tone. “We haven’t necessarily developed all at the same time, since as your personality and beliefs changed, so did we, but yes, we’ve always been there.”

Thomas looked a little confused at the explanation. “But… How come I’ve never met you before? Did you not manifest in the physical world?”

Patton titled his head. “Well of course we did kiddo! How else would we be in the pictures?”

Logan sighed. “Patton has a point. We have always been able to manifest ourselves in the real world, however, these appearances were rather brief and we didn’t have as much interaction with you. At the time, we were mostly content “helping from the backseat” as one would say. The sides you’ve interacted with most at the time were probably…” his own hand flew over his mouth and everyone turned to glare at Deceit.

“Ah ah ah,” tutted the snake-like figure, standing next to Patton. “Does Thomas want to know?”

Thomas looked annoyed. “Yes! I want to know!”

Deceit looked mildly amused and with a vague hand movement in Logan’s direction, he allowed the other side to drop his hand.

“Deceit.” Glared Logan. This was the third time today that he’d gotten interrupted.

“Yes, yes, I’m Deceit and I’m evil, I thought we already went over this,” said Deceit dismissively, rolling his eyes. He focused on Thomas. “But the whole story won’t make much sense unless we start from the beginning.”

“Well in that case, I’ll go first,” decided Roman from his corner of the room.

Thomas turned towards him, listening curiously.

“As you know, I’m your creativity, right?” Started Roman cautiously.

Thomas nodded.

“And you know Remus is my “twin”, I suppose, and he represents your “bad” creativity, right?”

Thomas nodded again.

“Well we weren’t always two separate people. We used to be one… His name was Romulus. He was a King. He represented your imagination.”

“He always had wonderful ideas for adventures! He always wanted to play! It was very fun!” Clapped Patton, smiling excitedly.

Roman continued. “Yes, he was very fun. He was the one who gave you all of your ideas back then, and who kept you from being bored by sending you daydreams and playing make believe.”

“Oh, so he’s the one I saw in the picture earlier?” Realised Thomas outloud, this fact being confirmed by Roman’s nod.

Logan piped up at that moment. “He was always looking to play, but eventually his ideas got… more dangerous and less fun. It’s a good thing I showed up. Who knows how many times you almost died!”

Thomas looked taken aback. “What?!”

Logan sighed.

“He simply means that Romulus’s ideas were getting rather crazy,” explained Roman.

“He almost convinced you to jump out of a window to “see if you could fly” after watching Peter Pan!” Protested Logic. “How is that fun?”

“I suppose that wasn’t the brightest idea…” Roman mumbled, feeling embarrassed despite the fact he wasn’t exactly Romulus.

“Anyway,” he shrugged. “Eventually, you started going to church and Romulus’ ideas were so crazy and they contradicted what you learned, which then caused the split.”

Thomas nodded again. “So… What happened to Romulus? He split into you and… Remus, but…” Thomas felt a wave of guilt. “Did I… kill one of you…”

Patton reassured him immediately. “No, no of course not kiddo!”

At the same time, Virgil spat out “yes.” The anxious side received glares from the other sides while Thomas continued to feel worried.

“What? I’m just saying. Romulus was better than you, Princey.”

Roman gasped indignantly. “You weren’t even around back then!”

Virgil shrugged, smirking because he’d gotten a rise out of the creative side.

Turning back to Thomas, he clarified. “Look, Romulus is gone and it’s highly unlikely that he can come back. But it’s not like you “killed” him entirely, because if it wasn’t for the split, he probably would’ve killed you with all his very, very, stupid ideas.”

Logan, surprisingly, agreed with Virgil. “He could’ve found a softer way to say it, but yes, I believe his point is valid.”

Roman continued his tale. “Remus and I were quite close back then, I think Specs and Patton were there too, right?”

He looked to the others for confirmation.

“Yes, you spent almost all your time together. One would think you were figuratively “joint at the hip”.” Said Logan.

Virgil rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to say figuratively, we know it’s an expression.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Well I simply wanted to make my point clear. There are people who are literally joint at the hip, for example, conjoined twins.”

Virgil rolled his eyes again. “But we know Roman and Remus and we know they aren’t conjoined twins,” he argued back.

Thomas watched them, kind of confused about how they got so far off topic.

“ANYWAY!” Called Roman over them, “can I finish?”

Logan straightened his glasses. “Yes, apologies for interrupting you, Roman.”

Virgil smirked. “Go ahead, Princey.”

Roman ignored him. “So, we were very close as children. But eventually, we had a huge fight… and we separated. I stayed with Logan and Patton while he left with Deceit.”

Deceit piped up then. “Well he didn’t have good points in that argument and I could feel that you all wanted me around anyway.”

“So… yeah. That’s basically my story.”

“Ooh! Ooh! I’ll go next!” Called Patton excitedly, jumping in place slightly. “I was the second side to form!”

Thomas glanced at him curiously. “Yeah?” Patton nodded. “I formed a little after Romulus,” he explained. “We had lots of fun together! It was easier back then…” he sighed a little nostalgically.

“What do you mean?” Asked Thomas.

“Well, I used to think right and wrong was as simple as black and white,” explained the moral side. “We were the good guys in all the adventures, and clearly the other guy was the bad guy. But now, everything is so complicated and I feel bad for the other sides because what if they had reasons behind their actions and they thought they were the good guys… and I’m still learning but I know the world isn’t black and white it’s… gray.” He sighed.

“It’s not like you could’ve known Padre,” Said Roman reassuringly.

“Yeah, and I mean we’re all still learning new things.” Added Thomas.

Patton cheered up a little. “Yes! And it was so easy to be happy back then. And now too I suppose, but it’s… a little harder. All the feelings… they’re so much more complicated now.”

Thomas hummed in agreement. He remembered being a kid, when the only concerns were things like finishing his homework and being able to play with his friends. He didn’t have to worry about making money and managing his own life and being healthy and so many other things.

He just had to… be happy.

“Yeah…” he sighed. “Those were fun times. Carefree. Careless.”

Logan interrupted him by clearing his throat loudly. “While those were indeed interesting times of your childhood, we can’t forget the fact that you've grown up. I may not be very familiar with emotions, but I do know it shouldn’t be impossible for Thomas to feel happy these days.”

Turning to the host, he asked: “don’t you feel satisfied when you accomplish a task you’ve been working on for a long time? Or pleased when you finish a video? Or content when you see your friends and family?”

Thomas agreed with each statement.

Satisfied, Logan turned back to the rest of the group. “See? Even if it’s not pure happiness, or childhood bliss, he still feels happiness.”

Patton smiled. “That’s true! And I know what can make you feel even better right now!”

Thomas looked perplexed. “But I’m not feeling sad..?”

Patton conjured a plastic container and tossed it to Thomas, who barely managed to catch it.

“Wha-“

“Cookies!” Exclaimed Patton cheerfully. “I baked them myself!”

Thomas opened the lid and saw some very… strange looking cookies.

“Thanks…I’ll eat them after dinner…” he said, not wanting to hurt the other one’s feelings.

Patton looked pleased at that. “The secret ingredient is the gummy worms!” He whisper-shouted in a conspiratorial tone.

Thomas nodded, giving a half hearted thumbs up. They all knew Patton loved to cook, however, the Dad-like side was a terrible chef. Still, no one wanted to hurt his feelings and tell him so, and they all accepted his food gifts, praying that it was at least cooked properly this time.

Deceit smirked knowingly at Thomas, because he had just lied.

“I won’t go next,” he said in his usual backwards way of speaking. “I wasn’t the third side to show up. I did always have snake scales on my face.”

Thomas was surprised. “You didn’t?”

Logan was the one who answered, shaking his head. “No, he actually didn’t until he left. I do not know when he developed them, but I would assume it was sometime between his leaving with Remus and his return this year.”

Deceit rolled his eyes playfully. “Awful deduction Logan, you’re totally wrong. More precisely, it wasn’t about a year after I moved out from the mind palace.” He specified.

“But why?”

Deceit shrugged, “You’re not the one who made me this way Thomas.”

Logan sighed, explaining his theory. “If I may, I believe the reason Deceit has a snakelike appearance is due to his nature and what you feel he is. In most pieces of literature, snakes are portrayed as evil and conniving. Given that you associate lying with being bad, it is natural that Deceit has developed traits to further support that belief. It’s the same reason I wear glasses and a tie; because you think it looks smart. And the same reason Remus has a moustache; you think it looks evil.”

Thomas nodded. “Oh, that’s… interesting… is there anything else I should know about you, Deceit?”

The snake side smiled sweetly. “Logan and I weren’t best friends back then, and you and I never played together.”

Those were both surprising pieces of information and Thomas was very shocked.

“What?!” He asked, surprised.

Logan adjusted his glasses on his nose again while Deceit smirked knowingly.

“Yes, we used to be quite close back in the day,” confirmed the logical side. “We spent a lot of time in the library, doing research. Though as you can probably guess, we were researching different topics for different reasons.”

Thomas nodded. “Okay, I guess that makes sense but…” he turned back towards Deceit. “What do you mean we played together? I think I would’ve remembered that, wouldn’t I?”

He asked the rest of the room, but everyone just shrugged while Deceit smirked.

“I’m sure you don’t remember. You know your imaginary friends?”

He shapeshifted into a small boy and Thomas gasped in recognition. “Noah?”

Deceit shifted again, and Thomas asked “James?” Deceit shifted one last time, to which Thomas recognized: “Aiden?”

Deceit shifted back to his regular self.

“All my imaginary friends growing up… they were all you? But why? I don’t understand…”

Deceit smirked. “Back then, I didn’t want you to lie because I knew it wouldn’t get you out of trouble.”

Patton gasped. “Oh that’s right! I remember now!”

Thomas looked at him with the same confused expression on his face.

“Remember what?”

Patton sighed. “Well, remember when you broke a vase, then you blamed it on “Noah”?” Your parents let it slide so you kept blaming more and more things on your imaginary friends until your parents got sick of it and told you you couldn’t see them anymore… so I guess Deceit stopped showing up because you felt bad about lying so much… or at least I felt bad so I know you must’ve felt at least a little guilty…”

Deceit smiled in agreement. “That's not exactly what happened Patton.”

The other took a second to process the backward sentence before smiling and nodding.

“I suppose I shall go next, given that I was the fourth one to form in the mind scape,” decided Logan.

Virgil looked like he was going to interject at that, but Logan cut him off. “Yes, Virgil, technically I was the fifth, if we count the split.”

Virgil frowned, but nodded, letting the teacher continue.

“There isn't really much I can tell you Thomas,” admitted Logan. “You know I help you with academic and logical matters, and it’s already been established that I spent much time with Deceit, doing research, as well as my position during the big fight,” he added, referring to the event splitting the group in half.

Thomas nodded, curiously asking: “But what was that fight even about? It must’ve been pretty huge to manage to split you guys like that…”

Roman sighed dramatically. “It was huge Thomas!”

Virgil nodded as well. “Yes it w-“

Roman raised an eyebrow at him. “We all know you weren’t there Hot Topic, no need to pretend.”

Before Virgil could say anything, Patton spoke up once more. “Well, that’s the thing. I… don’t really remember what the fight was about. I just know it was very upsetting…”

Thomas turned to the others, hoping one of them would remember, but no luck.

“So none of you remember what happened?” He asked, frowning.

“Well it was a long time ago, and things were said and we haven’t really spoken much until you started making the videos…” explained Roman a little sheepishly.

Virgil finally spoke up. “The fight was about Thomas!” He said loudly.

Everyone turned to face him, looking confused.

“Virgil, we all know you formed last, after the argument. Please don’t pretend,” scolded Logan from behind his glasses.

Patton smiled softly at him. “Yeah, it’s okay Kiddo! You weren’t there back then, but that doesn’t mean we love you any less!”

Virgil sighed and Deceit sent a knowing smirk his way.

Roman was the first to catch on.

“You weren’t there… Were you?” Asked the Prince, now uncertain.

There was a shift in the energy of the room, everyone looking at an uncomfortable Virgil, who looked down to avoid their gazes.

“I… um, I was actually there the whole time. I formed a little after Romulus,” he admitted, eyes still downcast.

Patton gasped in surprise. “But how come we’ve never seen you before!” Asked the father figure.

Logan frowned, looking at Virgil. “Indeed, if you were the second side to manifest in a physical way, why is it that you were the last one to reveal yourself to the rest of us?”

Virgil played with the string of his hoodie for a bit before answering.

“I was… well I was anxious about it…” he admitted softly. “I was going to introduce myself -I really was!- but then it was never a good time, and new sides kept showing up, and then there was the fight…”

Thomas stopped him. “Okay! The fight. You said it was about me. How so?”

Virgil looked at him. “Well, the twins both had very different ideas of what you should do to play that day. They were arguing about it and Logan came in to see what was going on, he said what Remus was saying was highly illogical and that he was wrong. Then Deceit arrived and he took Remus’ side. And then Patton, he tried to make everyone be friends but Remus said something very mean to upset him and ran off with Deceit.” Explained the anxious side quickly.

“Oh that’s right! I kinda remember that now,” Said Roman. He shook his head, sighing. “I wanted you to take theatre lessons, and Remus wanted you to jump off the roof or something.”

Thomas nodded. “Ok,” then he realized what the two options were and he turned towards Deceit. “Wait a second! You took his side?! Why would you want me to jump off the roof? I thought you were supposed to be self preservation?!”

Deceit shrugged slightly. “I wasn’t curious.” He said as an explanation.

Virgil sighed. “Then after Remus and Deceit ran off, they found me and..." He paused for a moment, looking anxious at the idea of continuing his story. Glancing up for a second, he met Deceit’s eyes, who was looking at him with faint curiosity, as if wondering if Virgil would continue his tale or not. He shook his head ever so slightly, causing Virgil to flinch and look down. “We just sorta… lived on the other side of the mindscape for awhile, until now I guess,” he mumbled in conclusion.

Thomas was silent for a while, processing all this new information.

“Wow… I never realized you lived your own lives in my head… that’s kinda weird actually…” he let out an awkward chuckle.

“Well now you know…” Said Logan.

“This was a fun trip down memory lane!” Exclaimed Patton. “I’m gonna bake more cookies now!” He sunk out.

Logan watched him go, then excused himself, saying he should ensure Patton didn’t burn down the kitchen.

Roman bowed dramatically. “I should also go, I’m fighting the dragon-witch in ten minutes!”

“I should stay,” smirked Deceit before sinking out like a snake.

“See ya Thomas. Don’t forget to lock the door!” Said Virgil before leaving as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! It makes me really, really happy :)  
> (So do reviews, but only if you want to...)


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